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Was AMD in a lull or just making longterm bets on technology? I've only followed casually in the last decade+ but I was under the impression that the ATI merge

Was AMD in a lull or just making longterm bets on technology? I've only followed casually in the last decade+ but I was under the impression that the ATI merger was meant to support a long term bet on better chips by AMD and we're starting to see the fruit of that labor.

faitswulff 7y ago
As a layperson, I never understood that merger. How does buying a graphics card company make for better chips in general?
- addicted 7y ago
  Integrating graphics card into their chips is what Intel seems to want to do as well. So it would appear AMD was ahead of the game. I guess, at the time, the thinking was that GPUs were a core threat to the CPU business itself, since a lot of the buzz was around using the GPU to do CPU activities.
  - sanxiyn 7y ago
    Yes, there was this thing called HSA(Heterogeneous System Architecture). Does anyone remember that now?
    - consp 7y ago
      Yes, parts of it now present in IOMMU(v2)
    - throwaway2048 7y ago
      Zen in many ways is still moving towards that model, The concept of an IO die that all cores hook into, along with all of PCI-E lanes, no need for complicated cross core linking. It would be relatively "easy" to introduce specialized accelerator cores or beefy GPU chips into this mix on a separate chip, and not massively complicate the CPU design, or massively bloat its cost as a specialist die.
    - jorvi 7y ago
      The PS4 is an example of that. It's an APU with GDDR5 acting as both system and video memory. To be honest for a while I thought that was where everything but servers would be going. You can tune your OS and applications around the slower GDDR5 and it seemed a no brainer: instead of 8GB of system memory topping out and then 4GB of VRAM doing jack shit you could have 12GB that could be dynamically assigned to whatever you wanted! Alas, that dream was never meant to be. Edit: I posted about this a while a back and apparently Arch Linux has a hacky way to use your VRAM as system RAM. Good stuff.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- dtech 7y ago
  Some advantages: * Integrated graphics in their CPUs is important for lower-end systems and APU/SoCs. Intel had an integrated GPU at the time, AMD didn't. * It allowed them to provide the CPU+GPU for all Xbox and Playstation consoles since the acquisition * It might have allowed them better deals with chip factories because their volume increased
  - rch 7y ago
    It was a bad bet on netbooks that didn't fully anticipate the dominance of smartphones.
    - philjohn 7y ago
      Their low-end Ryzen APUs can game better than low-end Intel chips with their IGP.
- fulafel 7y ago
  At the time it seemed that GPUs were becoming developer friendly and productivity might approach CPU languages, but then it all plateaued and GPU languages & OS integration stayed clunky. And fragmented. Also, most computers come with integrated graphics today. It's the no brainer choice for most uses.
bcrosby95 7y ago
They hired Jim Keller to design the Zen architecture around 2012, and he left in 2015. Many people point to him for their current success. He joined Intel in 2018.
- Arwill 7y ago
  Is AMD getting ahead of Intel with a superior architecture, or due to the fact that its running on 7nm instead of Intel's 14nm?
  - alecmg 7y ago
    Part chip design, part 7nm being unexpectedly good. But the chiplet architecture, supported by fast Infinity Fabric interconnect is what puts AMD ahead. Intel will have to go same route to stay competitive. And now they are two steps behind.
    - sq_ 7y ago
      Chiplets were for sure an amazing bet AMD made that’s paid off big time. The smaller dies and modular setup even on the same die gives them so much flexibility in their binning and package integration and must keep defect rates much lower than Intel’s monolithic high core count chips.
      - dralley 7y ago
        And the 14nm I/O die means they can still keep buying chips from GloFo, whom they still have a contract with as part of the spinoff from a decade ago.
    - bryanlarsen 7y ago
      Intel has some very impressive chiplet technologies in house, aka EMIB. It's surprising they haven't used it for anything but that weird 8809G yet, but I'm sure it'll be used in more products next year.
    - hitpointdrew 7y ago

faitswulff 7y ago

As a layperson, I never understood that merger. How does buying a graphics card company make for better chips in general?

addicted 7y ago
Integrating graphics card into their chips is what Intel seems to want to do as well. So it would appear AMD was ahead of the game. I guess, at the time, the thinking was that GPUs were a core threat to the CPU business itself, since a lot of the buzz was around using the GPU to do CPU activities.
- sanxiyn 7y ago
  Yes, there was this thing called HSA(Heterogeneous System Architecture). Does anyone remember that now?
  - consp 7y ago
    Yes, parts of it now present in IOMMU(v2)
  - throwaway2048 7y ago
    Zen in many ways is still moving towards that model, The concept of an IO die that all cores hook into, along with all of PCI-E lanes, no need for complicated cross core linking. It would be relatively "easy" to introduce specialized accelerator cores or beefy GPU chips into this mix on a separate chip, and not massively complicate the CPU design, or massively bloat its cost as a specialist die.
  - jorvi 7y ago
    The PS4 is an example of that. It's an APU with GDDR5 acting as both system and video memory. To be honest for a while I thought that was where everything but servers would be going. You can tune your OS and applications around the slower GDDR5 and it seemed a no brainer: instead of 8GB of system memory topping out and then 4GB of VRAM doing jack shit you could have 12GB that could be dynamically assigned to whatever you wanted! Alas, that dream was never meant to be. Edit: I posted about this a while a back and apparently Arch Linux has a hacky way to use your VRAM as system RAM. Good stuff.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
dtech 7y ago
Some advantages: * Integrated graphics in their CPUs is important for lower-end systems and APU/SoCs. Intel had an integrated GPU at the time, AMD didn't. * It allowed them to provide the CPU+GPU for all Xbox and Playstation consoles since the acquisition * It might have allowed them better deals with chip factories because their volume increased
- rch 7y ago
  It was a bad bet on netbooks that didn't fully anticipate the dominance of smartphones.
  - philjohn 7y ago
    Their low-end Ryzen APUs can game better than low-end Intel chips with their IGP.
fulafel 7y ago
At the time it seemed that GPUs were becoming developer friendly and productivity might approach CPU languages, but then it all plateaued and GPU languages & OS integration stayed clunky. And fragmented. Also, most computers come with integrated graphics today. It's the no brainer choice for most uses.

bcrosby95 7y ago

They hired Jim Keller to design the Zen architecture around 2012, and he left in 2015. Many people point to him for their current success. He joined Intel in 2018.

Arwill 7y ago
Is AMD getting ahead of Intel with a superior architecture, or due to the fact that its running on 7nm instead of Intel's 14nm?
- alecmg 7y ago
  Part chip design, part 7nm being unexpectedly good. But the chiplet architecture, supported by fast Infinity Fabric interconnect is what puts AMD ahead. Intel will have to go same route to stay competitive. And now they are two steps behind.
  - sq_ 7y ago
    Chiplets were for sure an amazing bet AMD made that’s paid off big time. The smaller dies and modular setup even on the same die gives them so much flexibility in their binning and package integration and must keep defect rates much lower than Intel’s monolithic high core count chips.
    - dralley 7y ago
      And the 14nm I/O die means they can still keep buying chips from GloFo, whom they still have a contract with as part of the spinoff from a decade ago.
  - bryanlarsen 7y ago
    Intel has some very impressive chiplet technologies in house, aka EMIB. It's surprising they haven't used it for anything but that weird 8809G yet, but I'm sure it'll be used in more products next year.
  - hitpointdrew 7y ago